Ex-public safety official's schedule under review

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Officials in Flint want to make sure that the city’s recently resigned public safety administrator spent the appropriate amount of time on the job after learning he also had full-time employment about 70 miles away in Detroit.

Flint City Administrator Michael Brown hired Barnett Jones in April and will review his work records and schedule, MLive.com reported Saturday.

Jones stepped down from the $135,000 per year job Thursday after being questioned about working as chief security and integrity officer for Detroit’s Department of Water and Sewerage, which pays him $138,750.

Flint’s finances are under the control of a state-appointed manager. Jones’ salary there was paid by a foundation grant.

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There is no evidence that he was not working full-time in Flint, Brown said.

“All I can say right now is, he was (at work) and engaged and I think he was working 40 hours at two jobs,” Brown told MLive.com. “I guess you could say burning the candle at both ends.”

So far, Jones appears to be keeping the position in Detroit, where he was hired in May.

“I would not ask him to step down,” water department director Sue McCormick told the Detroit Free Press on Friday. “I haven’t been, in any way, dissatisfied with his service.”

Brown was not aware of Jones’ job in Detroit until this week. McCormick knew Jones was working in Flint, but understood the job to be part-time.

A union official in Detroit wants Jones gone from the water department, too.

“He should have been fired,” Michael Mulholland told the Free Press. Mulholland is vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 207, representing about 77 security guards and more than 800 other workers.

“When he was hired in, they changed the name to the department of security and integrity because they wanted to set a new tone,” Mulholland said. “If that irony alone isn’t enough to fire him, I don’t know what is.”

Jones has spent about 37 years in law enforcement and is a certified firefighter. He also has worked as safety services administrator for Ann Arbor, overseeing police, fire and emergency management services.